WHERE LOGIC DOESN'T ACT

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 59, Issue 75, 1 May 1930, Page 3

WHERE LOGIC DOESN'T ACT

THE HAWKE'S BAY SHEEPFARMER'S WOOLLEN SUITS. LOW WOOL VALUES DO NOT REFLECT. BALANCED BY HIGH MANUFACTURING COSTS. Can the Hawke's Bay _ pastoralist, now that the prices of his wool °hp are down to bedrock limits, purchase bis woollen clothing at a cheaper rate ? By all the laws of logic, a cheap rate for raw wool should result in a correspondingly cheap rate for woollen clothing, but are the laws of logic borne out in this case? An answer fco this question is supplied in an article which recently appeared m the Pastoral Review. "We are told repeatedly that the low prices for raw wool will be conducive to increa^ed consumption of manufactured woollen goods," _ comments the writer. "Everything is now set to test this dictum. Values have for months been falling steadily and are now at a level which _ even the dourest and most pessimistic _ buyer could hardly describe as anything but low. We should therefore expect to see the general public beginning to make a rush for the cheap suits, soc-ks, underclothing, etc. t that will be the outcome of cheap wool. ' "We have noticed that - when our tailor quotes us a guinea rise on the cost of a suit, or our mercer apologetically mentions the price of the latest shipment of socks he invariahly accounts for the increase (by 'wool having gone up.' ' "Yet a moment' s thought regardmg the weight of wool in a pair of socks or a suit of clothes will very cleavly show the infinitesimal proportion of the increased cost that can rightly be ascribed to even a 20 per cent. rise in wool prices. The truth is that eonvorsion costs are so heavy and spch profits are taken that raw material prices count for very little in the finished axticlcs. "The reductfon of these items sbouid be just as much the aim of the campaign to rehabilitate wool as thfe reduction of costs in the production of the raw material. _ What is the use of the grower straining every nerve to grow wool at a price that will enable it to compete with substitutes if all his sacrifices are wasted in tl'.e process of conversion and his cheap wool reaches the consumer as dear clothing ?"